1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an object movement control system, an object movement control method, a server, and a computer program that can smoothly update the positional information of a virtual object in a virtual space by distributing processing loads.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as computer technology has rapidly developed, the amount of data that can be processed by each processor has rapidly increased. However, in recent years as information processing techniques have been applied to all industries, the demand for data processing capabilities has greatly exceeded the rate of improvement in processor capabilities. Thus, under current circumstances, in many cases, a single processor cannot provide sufficient processing capability.
Accordingly, in many cases, data processing capability is improved by parallel processing using a plurality of processors. In particular, in a virtual space system that calculates and displays the movement, state, and the like of a virtual object such as a virtual avatar in a virtual space identified by software, a problem exists in that unless parallel processing using a plurality of processors is performed, the responsiveness of the movement of a virtual object is unsatisfactory, such that virtual reality is impaired.
In order to solve such a problem, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-175288 discloses a multiprocessor system that includes a plurality of cell processors and can perform parallel processing at high speed. In Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-175288, data is broadcasted to all cell processors, and each of the cell processors selects data necessary for processing and performs predetermined processing. Then, a CPU core obtains the results of the processing from all the cell processors to perform, at high speed, data processing that causes heavy processing loads. In particular, paragraphs (0054) to (0057) of the document disclose a case where the multiprocessor system is applied to determination of collision of virtual objects.
However, in the multiprocessor system disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-175288, since data necessary for a series of processing steps is broadcast simultaneously to all cell processors connected to the multiprocessor system so that data communication can be performed, processing loads on the network increase. Thus, a problem exists in that the rate of improvement in the overall processing throughput decreases.
Moreover, in the determination of collision of virtual objects disclosed in paragraphs (0054) to (0057) of the document, since each of the cell processors performs the collision determination, which causes heavy processing loads, processing that is concurrently performed in each of the cell processors, other than the collision determination, may be affected. The other processing may include position calculation or generation of display image data.
Moreover, since processing loads on each of the cell processors change over time, a method for uniformly assigning processing to be performed may cause uneven distribution of processing loads. Thus, the method may cause a bottleneck in the improvement of overall throughput.
In view of such circumstances, it is an object of the present invention to provide an object movement control system, an object movement control method, a server, and a computer program that can update the positional information of an object in a virtual space at high speed by appropriately distributing processing loads.